While we follow the soap operas at Westminster, Brussels and Washington other things happen in the world. Some of them will have effects that may still reverberate when the names “May” or “Merkel” or “Trump” have become no more than answers to pub quiz questions. Harry Phibbs, writing in CapX, has depressing news:
Anti-scientific EU rules are hindering work to save millions of lives
Let us consider another EU imposition. It is a rule that inhibits our contribution to the fight against malaria. According to UNICEF this disease is “the largest killer of children” on the planet. That agency estimates that malaria kills one child every 30 seconds, about a million a year. Most of those children are under five years of age, with 90 per cent of cases occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. Research suggests that while the number of deaths has fallen since 2010, in the last couple of years progress has stalled.
The good news is that a gene editing application has been developed which could eradicate malaria. It is called CRISPR — Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats — and is considered “cheaper, faster, and less error-prone than any gene editing technology that came before it”. It could help preserve endangered species, improve welfare for farm animals — and save the lives of millions of children. The idea is to make mosquitoes immune to the disease.
But
In July, the BBC reported that the “European Court of Justice ruled that altering living things using the relatively new technique of genome editing counts as genetic engineering.” It added that “scientists who work in the areas of gene editing and genetic modification warned that the ruling would hold back cutting-edge research and innovation.”
Denis Murphy, professor of biotechnology at the University of South Wales, said the EU rules would “potentially impose highly onerous burdens on the use of genome editing both in agriculture and even in medicine, where the method has recently shown great promise for improving human health and well being.”
I must be honest here. As I read that article, mixed in with the genuine sadness and anger I felt about the way the EU’s restrictions look likely to hinder the development of a technique that could have alleviated large amounts of human suffering, I also felt a certain ignoble exhilaration. The European Union is being as bad as I always said it was. I had found a devastating answer to “Name me one bad thing the EU does, then!” It is possible that partisan passion is blinding me to the good reasons the ECJ might have had for caution. Ecosystems are complicated. Messing about with them has a habit of going wrong. Think of the introduction of rabbits to Australia or Mao’s attempt to eradicate sparrows from China.
One of the skipped-over paragraphs from Mr Phibbs’ article that I covered with the word “But” is this one:
“The team began with just two edited males, designated mosquitoes 10.1 and 10.2, into which the drive was inserted. After two generations of cross-breeding with hundreds of wild-type mosquitoes — and in mosquitoes, two generations can pass in less than a month — they produced 3,894 third-generation mosquitoes, of which 3,869 (99.5 percent) had the resistance gene. Just two mosquitoes were able to spread the trait to thousands of progeny — and malaria resistance along with it.”
The speed of that geometric progression scares me. Once started, the spread of these gene-edited mosquitoes could not be easily reversed.
But maybe it does not scare you, and you know more of genome editing than I do. My knowledge of biology is that of an attentive reader of pop science. Can any of you tell me more about this subject? Is the EU being as bad as I always said it was?
Provided that your article is sufficiently explanatory, then, Yes, the EU is overextending itself. Whether the proposed genetic modifications are ‘genetic engineering’ or not is irrelevant. Some obscure verboten re ‘genetic engineering’is not acceptable, and has little to do with ‘law’.
What matters is that the scientific investigation must proceed without let. The point at which the adapted mosquitoes are released into the wild is the important thing, and not some EU law.
In any case, what does the EU have to do with Sub-Saharan Africa?
I presume the people doing the research are European citizens and therefore chattels of the EU?
Roue, the correct term is Euro-peon, no doubt because European bureaucrats like to pee on the taxpayers from a great height.
Haven’t we done this all before with DDT?
This issue seems to bring us back to the issue of kettles. Our unelected EU masters are so ignorant of even primary school level science that they think that a kettle that uses half as much electricity for twice as much time will save energy. So why would they be qualified to pass judgement on really complex cutting edge science like this?
Well, it is genetic engineering.
But that is a good thing. End of.
Natalie, I would recommend the following links.
https://default.salsalabs.org/T26a4da2c-a6c9-4ff5-88d1-66175fabb5fd/7a4ca633-a018-11e6-908b-1254aa67e287
New Yorker article about one of the top gene drive researchers.
https://phys.org/news/2017-06-gene-editing-technique-mosquito-borne-disease.html
The effectiveness of gene drives in the wild.
-Myno
If genetically modified mosquitos bite someone do they become part of a scientific experiment? I suppose it depends on whether genetic material is passed into the bitten person and if that material is active in any way.
MosquitoMan, MosquitoMan
does whatever a mosquito can
Somebody call Marvel, stat!
I suppose it means the end of my dreams of building EuroJurassic Park.
Arguably though that already exists in a large town in Belgium…
Seriously though. Is that (fantasy) movie driving some of this? I mean Dear Old Dickie Attenborough got the DNA from mosquitos didn’t he? So, if you are a scientific illiterate (as suspect these judges are) then you add 1+1 and come up with i.
I share the temptation – and the realisation that giving way to it is one of the paths to thinking like a lefty. Compared to the many pointless and self-serving things the EU does, this will at least bear some debate. The EUrocrats who did this probably don’t actually profit from malaria remaining rife and (unlike the DDT banners, who got fame and power) they may not be enhancing their power by banning or delaying instead of authorising (of course, I could be missing some subtlety there).
I agree with you that these EUrocrats are probably even less fit than you and I would be to reach a right opinion about this, never mind whether they should be a forum to decide. But if we were so empowered, I’m sure we’d both recall the end of Wyndham’s Consider Her Ways: the heroine’s friend is appalled she has murdered a noble research doctor because of her crazy idea she’d foreseen the consequences of his work – but since she has done so, he cannot help sort-of-wishing she’d been thorough enough also to murder the doctor’s son, who has the same name and plans to continue his development of a bug to kill rats, so fits the vision’s prediction equally well. Ridiculous, surely, to let such SF ideas influence us – but they would be in our minds. 🙂
There are risks to doing things and risks to not doing things. The EU had better have a better reason for not doing this than, “it’s genetic engineering”.
I don’t understand all the issue but there are some mitigating factors: for example, there are many species of mosquito and only a few of them spread malaria, so you’re only affecting a small proportion of mosquitoes.
Niall: “this will at least bear some debate”. Yes, though I do wonder how one debates with the EU, and whether it ever changes its mind.
Btw, see also Perry Metzger’s previous post about eradicating mosquitoes: https://www.samizdata.net/2016/02/exterminate-all-mosquitoes/
This comment addresses many concerns: https://www.samizdata.net/2016/02/exterminate-all-mosquitoes/#comment-700047
He also links to this article about how eradicating certain species will not damage the environment: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html
How does one say “Ban all the things!” in Eurenglish?
NIALL !
You said Wyndham. I looked. Yes, this is SF-Wyndham. John Wyndham wrote my all-time favorite SF book, and I mean favorite over the last 62 or 63 years since I first read it, at ~ the age of 13! That would be Out of the Deeps — a wonderfully mysterious title, unfortunately known to you less æsthetically aware Brits as The Kraken Wakes. (Silly people. The critter weren’t even a octopus, it were a jellyfish — sorta.)
(On the other hand, Mr. Wyndham also committed Day of the Triffids, a silly thing about walking rutabagas. *g*)
Never mind. On the strength of the first book, I have hied me on over to eBay and am about to risk $ 4 on Consider Her Ways and other stories. All I say is, it better be up to scratch, or you are in big trouble!
On t’other hand, if it’s a winnah, I will peel you a grape to go along with the one I’m working on for Ferox.
😀 😀 😀
Rob F, thanks for the links. Good Discussion.
I was captivated by Whyndham’s short stories as a kid. The Crysalids was the first book that I read from cover to cover in one go. The midwich Cuckoos is also good.
Dear God, I had not heard about the sparrows. What a waste.
Julie near Chicago (October 17, 2018 at 4:00 pm), I thought everyone who had read Wyndham at all would have read all of his not-so-huge post-war work (WWII matured him – I have little use for his pre-war stories). I apologise for having spoilt the twist in the ending for you.
(Should it be ‘spoilt it for you’ or ‘spoilered it for you’ ? ‘Spoilered’ – back-formed from ‘spoilers’ – is less ambiguous, but ‘spoilt’ is undoubtedly a word, whereas I am very leery of ‘spoilered’. 🙂 )
Yeah, we should simply trust that scientists know what they’re doing, share our values, and never ever cut corners.
Niall, what are you talking about? You didn’t spoil anything for me!
As for “spoilt,” I’m known to use it when in a fey mood; it’s a perfectly good word, just a touch out-of-date, at least over here. The normal simple past is “spoiled.” “Spoiler,” after all, is a noun, so it wouldn’t have a past tense at all — not even a completely complicated one. LOL
But since we Americans, at least, no longer bother to distinguish between nouns and verbs, why worry. Use whatever word or quasi-word pops into your head and leave your communicant to figure out what it means. “Now this latest build…” “I finished the install…” “Oh phoo, he didn’t medal…” … I call it all a sin and a shame, but what’s a poor girl to do except gripe to her friends.
I do take you folks to task (also our pals the Canucks, at least some of ’em) for not knowing how to pernonce words where the vowel is followed by a single consonant; for example, “privacy,” which as everybody knows has a long i; yet you-all say it as if it were spelled “privvacy.” Same with “simultaneous”: has a long, not a short, i. And I was shocked, shocked, to hear Richard (Epstein) come out with “divissive.” I put it down to the unfortunate effects of having studied law at Oxford….
On the other hand, over here too many of us are discombobulated by the word “primer,” which can mean some sort of introductory reading material, in which case every fool ought to know that it’s properly pronounced like “primmer” or “trimmer”; or it can mean the cord you pull to start the lawn-mower or the Explosive Device, in which case the i is long: “primer”-rhymes-with-“rhymer.”
Anyhow, I never said English is entirely consistent in either usage or pernonciation. :>(
I trust you are properly grateful for this free tutelage on stuff you know perfectly well.
😈 😈 😆 😀
(P.S. Not so long ago I was complaining humourously to the Young Miss about how people “mispernonce” words. She looked at me as if I had more than the usual number of heads, all of them empty, and said “pernonce?” in a puzzled sort of voice. So I had to explain that that’s my idea of humour. She looked much relieved.)
Given that for about 4 decades we have allowed millions of deaths by foregoing the use of DDT, which if used properly presents minimal risks compared to the scourge of malaria, this is just one additional, small insult.
Not me; Scots are different (probably also some English dialects).
Oh no it doesn’t!! This is the vilest heresy!!! (Or at least a point on which we must agree to disagree.) 🙂
I register another dissent.
I was tempted to remark with lofty disdain that “The language is called English” – but then I remembered that I am a Scot – and that the great vowel shift of the 18th century means that Queen Elizabeth the first and Shakespeare might sometimes have agreed with you instead of me.
Now that really is shocking. I have never heard divisive with a short middle vowel – and I too studied at Oxford.
Oh, great. Now I have to hear this sentence spoken before I know whether to use an undercoat or read the manual.
Oh gadzooks, Niall. I don’t think anybody pernonced anything right after the Norman Conquest. And as for how to add suffixes to words, one simply weeps.
Well, as the song says, “You say tomato, I say tomahto…” except I don’t, of course. That sounds dreadfully effete to me. But I think I won’t call the whole thing off. Too much fun parsing & grarsing wit’ you. (Because “grousing” just doesn’t at all rhyme with “parsing.)
bobby, 😆
I’m not a genetic researcher, so I defer to them for the scientific details, hence the reference to Dr. Kevin Esvelt.
But I don’t defer to them on the sociopolitical aspects. Where many express concern about creatures that may depend on mosquitoes for sustenance, I do not. I care about humans. So, hypothetically, ridding the biosphere of 10% of the mosquito species is perfectly fine by me.
Here in Hawaii, endemic birds are in catastrophic trouble. With the exception of 1-2 species that are starting to show resistance to avian malaria, for all the others, all it takes is a single mosquito bite and the bird dies. For those species, the only remaining birds are at elevations where the mosquitos don’t abide. So I’m on record encouraging the State to use the Big Island as a test zone for attempting to get rid of Aedes aegypti. It would certainly save the birds, and also eliminate the rare outbreaks of dengue et al we have had locally.
In wider environs, I do worry about whether the genes we float across continents might end up doing things we don’t intend. Given that one might need ~5 distinct gene drives incorporated at once (as my second link attests), it is trickier than we first thought to pull this trick off. If an attempt fails, the remaining mosquitoes will be much harder to deal with.
Then there’s the admittedly nebulous risks associated with the way that genes are shared between species. Bacteria and macrophages do this to an alarming degree, and through their infections of hosts, they offer the “flexibilty” of rare genetic incorporations to other life forms. This happens at extremely slow rates, but substantial parts of our genetic code came from sources not directly in our genetic line. I rather doubt that there is sufficient commonality between the base of the mosquito and our own, but if pieces of the gene drive migrated elsewhere within the insects, it might change much more than we anticipate, possibly having an impact on human life, though likely not as great as stopping malaria.
The philosophical dilemma is the comparitive costs of waiting for more complete knowledge. The pressure is on the scientists, and I do not envy their burden of responsibility.
What will science in the UK be like after Brexit? Will you chuck off all those rules, and let scientists do whatever they like with mossies?
The first demand of Mrs May was that the United Kingdom accept (“incorporate into British law”) ALL existing European Union regulations – in short that there would be NO DEREGUALTION AT ALL by leaving the European Union. Now Mrs May is demanding that we accept all FUTURE European Union regulations – her “White Paper” uses the word “harmonisation” – i.e. if the European Union imposes a regulation we, the United Kingdom, then impose “a regulation of our own” that just happens to be identical to the European Union regulation.
In short, for example, if the European Union bans something (or so restricts it as to bankrupt it) we do not follow the European Union regulation – we impose a regulation “of our own” that just happens to be identical the European Union one (we “harmonise”). I can not find the words to express my contempt for the present Prime Minister – I leave that to Mr Ecks and others.
Presumably, as the technology progresses, we will start to build these genetic changes with “off switches”. Spray a particular signalling pheromone in the air, and all the mosquitoes become immune. Spray a different one, and they all become susceptible again.
@Julie near Chicago
Yes; 1066 and All That was responsible for a lot: not the least the transmogrification of English into a world language and Europe’s only Analytical Language.
Speaking “blighty” or “Limey” is quite a “beaut” “prob” and not at all “cushy” especially if you wear “pyjamas” in your “cot “and live in a “bungalow” in the “jungle,” wear a “bandanna” and use “shampoo.” Of course you can spend a bit of “wonga” and “trek” up to Aberdeen where they speak “bonzer.” Or I could consult a “bloke” like a “guru” but I am too much of a “bludger” for that.
English Grammar is like the Pirates Code from the film Pirates of the Caribbean:
“…more what you call guidelines than actual rules…”
We can’t know the results of this.
Oh, beautifully squawked, tph. So nice to read something that does not give English the bird. :>)
“I must be honest here”
If that is so, the contrary is quite worrying.
Peter, now you’re getting into my territory! 😀
Namely, is “the contrary” that
or is it that
Inquiring minds with way too much time on their hands want to know.
[I think we call that a “mixed metaphor.” *g*]
Heh heh heh …
tph, Niall, et al.:
See this short clip of Lucy giving Desi help with the prernonciation of certain tougher English words. ~ 3+ min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAL9VD6Lz9Y
@Julie near Chicago
Always been a fan of Lucy – Poems have been written on the subject:
“Plough on: say ‘Lough’. Though it seem tough,
Be thorough – do not sough, “Enough!”
Take thought, don’t cough, and say ‘Hiccough”.
Alternatively – just give up.
Pronounced:
Plow on: say ‘Lock’. Though it seem tuff,
Be thurra – do not zow, “Enuff!”
Take thort, don’t coff, and say ‘Hiccup”.
Alternatively – just give up.
Or the one by Gerard Nolst Trenité – The Chaos (1922) which cites 800 of them and is so long I have never had the patience to read it all the way through but can be accessed at:
http://ncf.idallen.com/english.html
The saxonist and mathematician Charles Dodgson was having a joke on this in his book Alice in Wonderland:
`Then you should say what you mean,’ the March Hare went on.
`I do,’ Alice hastily replied; `at least–at least I mean what I say–that’s the same thing, you know.’
`Not the same thing a bit!’ said the Hatter. `You might just as well say that “I see what I eat” is the same thing as “I eat what I see”!’
`You might just as well say,’ added the March Hare, `that “I like what I get” is the same thing as “I get what I like”!’
`You might just as well say,’ added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, `that “I breathe when I sleep” is the same thing as “I sleep when I breathe”!’
“It is the same thing with you,’ said the Hatter…”
The massive language change in the Celtic languages and English after the 1066 invasion is a facinating subject. In English, word order came to predominate rather than word inflexion to give meaning – but word inflexion still exists and is still very important in spoken English although it is not reflected in dictionaries overmuch. The influence of Norse, Danish and the Germanics on English is well documented but I believe that the influence of the Celtic languages was deep and profound on English both by Romano-Celtic and later post 1066: a significant part of what is now England and Wales was still Celtic speaking pre-1066 and the results of the interaction has been underestimated in past discussion on the subject.
Fascinating, tph! I have seen the poem poking fun at the idiosyncratic pronunciations of our “-ough” words, and of course Humpty Dumpty points out to Alice that “the question is, Who is to be master?”
But I will have to investigate the 800-line poem to which you link. “Iiiiiinpuuuut !!!,” as Johnny-5 so often says in Short Circuit II.
You clearly know a heckuva lot more than I do about the history of our language. Fascinating! Thank you.
@Julie near Chicago
Yes I did spell Fascinating incorrectly but it timed out before I spotted it! ho-hum.
I’m guessing you possibly saw it on this very blog.
All my own work (of decades ago), and except for the rhymes no two ‘ough’ sounds are the same. For this to be true, you have to pronounce sough as it must be in the Gilbert and Sullivan song
and not with an ‘ow’ sound as I have heard it sung in the Trade Winds song
and as terence patrick hewett (October 19, 2018 at 7:04 am) appeared to be suggesting – nor is there an ‘r’ sound in thought but I grant ‘r’ may be a typo as I too have found that sometimes 5 minutes is not long enough.)
I’ve seen other attempts at ‘ough’ lines in pronunciation poems , but never one that gets so many ‘oughs’ into so few lines, so I am (confessing to being 🙂 ) proud of mine.
@Niall Kilmartin
As I read it the pronunciation of “sough” depends on dialect: I favour the Somerset “zow” but the OED gives “sow and “suf.” you pays yr money…
Well, Niall, maybe you should take a tip from Hector and adopt “Vile Poet” as your moniker. ;>) –No, I didn’t know it’s yours. Good job!
tph, good grief. Complication upon complication! So does “sow” here go like the feminine pig, or like pushing through water with a paddle? (I see that on-line Macmillan says the latter: sow-rhymes-with-oh.)
Either way, my own guess has always been “suff.” And as for “lough,” it never occurred to me to say “lock” or, more precisely, “lokh,” like the gargled German ch, as in McLaughlin (between McLochlan-short-o & McLawchlin, sorta, or “McLachlan).
And at some point a few years back, the Young Miss asked me about the difference in meaning between the usual “through” and “thru,” as is found on Interstate traffic signs and in “drive-thru” — 😥
Here’s one on me:
Now I always, always thought that was “lower” as in lowering the blinds, nightfall, despite the bothersome false rhyme. Come to realize, eventually, that it’s lower-like-bower. I still find this even more distressing because the idea of dusk nightfall or ,lowering, over the land is so very mysterious, with the slightest thrill of the ominous.
I hate having the word-associations that arouse wonder reduced to mundanity when the words are properly understood. (Yeah, I know, no such word. But there oughta be.) There’s an example of this in Thurber’s The Years with Ross, where he talks about finding out that “The Assyrian came down on the fold / And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold” did not yield the “fine, fleering image of a single Assyrian” decked out in purple and gold, but rather as having a bunch of guys to help him, “the big sissy.” 😆
Correction: The Dictionary attests that indeed “mundanity” is a recognized word.
@Julie near Chicago
Here are some English and Scottish dialect words for “alleyway:
ginnel, jennel, gennel, gynell, twychell, twichell, twitten, jigger, snicket, jitty, gitty, gulley, entry, chares, ghauts, opes, shuts, wynd, pend, vennel, cuttings, 8-foot, 10-foot, passage, lane, close or steps.
@Julie near Chicago
There are 2 different pronunciations of “sow” because they come from 2 different Old-English root words. The “sow” I was referring to was the porcine variety.
@Julie near Chicago
Ho! Ho! I have just looked up “sough” in the highly idiosyncratic Fowler’s English Usage and this is what he has to say:
“Sough. The pronunciation alternatives in the OED are “suf” “sow” and “soo” the last followed by the breathed guttural. English people, uncertain how to pronounce the word, are shy of using it; when they do they probably give it the first; a Scot, who has no such inhibitions, will certainly give it the last.”
Don’t-blame-me!!!
My ‘sough’ rhymes with ‘true’, as per the G&S song, and that is how I believe the Queen would say it (G&S, don’t y’know) but I know there are, as Terence says, dialects in which it rhymes with ‘bough’, and some singers of the Trade Winds song sing it so. I have never heard of its being pronounced with a final ‘f’ (nor can it ever have the ‘o’ sound of ‘cough’ either).
I obviously read poetry in a very mundane way. Neither Julie’s ‘lower’ nor Thurber’s singular Assyrian ever occurred to me. 🙂
Let’s see. Niall, I never in my life ever heard the verb “lower” as meaning anything except to go or to cause to go downword. “Lower the boom” for instance, or as above “I lowered the blinds.”
As I so often do, I got to ruminating about words a few years ago, and the word “glower” breezed through the mental crabgrass. Followed at once by “lower” as a possible rhyme. Then I wondered if perchance “glower” might = “glow” + “lower” (apparently not, if you believe
https://www.etymonline.com/word/glower ), and somewhere along the way it occurred to me that lower-rhymes-with-sour might be what Mr. Wordsworth meant…repair to the Dictionary…indeed, “to look dark and menacing”:
https://www.etymonline.com/word/lower
which is actually rather similar to one of the meanings the same source gives for “glower.”
.
tph: Of course I was brought up on Fowler and then Turabian. You say Fowler gives ‘“soo” the last followed by the breathed guttural.’ Which causes me to think of the hog-call:
“Sookie, sookie, sookie, here piggy piggy piggy.” Hm.
And on my grandparents’ farm we didn’t even have pigs! *g* But Dave Grossman, a near neighbor and a member of the 4-H club, did raise pigs for his 4-H project (mine was chickens), so I did have some personal contacts with the critters. (Which have a most unsavory reputation, which is deeply ill-deserved.)
@Julie near Chicago
Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey!
Oh Lord, Emsworth!
. . .
Definitely didn’t get enough sleep last night.
Longfellow, not Wordsworth.